Rocco stays on school board under new law
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published Feb. 8, 2006

Six weeks ago, Andrea Rocco thought it was a long shot.

But on Thursday, Gov. Bob Taft signed House Bill 455, which allows a city law director to serve on a board of education for which the law director is not the legal advisor.

The bill contained an emergency clause which allows it to go into effect immediately.

The new law, which was sponsored by Rep. Sally Conway Kilbane, ends a controversy in which Rocco’s legal qualifications to remain on the school board were questioned by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office.

In November, Rocco was the top vote getter in a five-person race for two school board seats. But shortly after winning re-election, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason wrote her saying she could not keep her school board seat as long as she also served as part-time prosecutor for the city of Westlake.

Rocco was appointed assistant law director by Mayor Dennis Clough in March 2005. She was appointed to the school board in 2001 to fill a vacancy and was elected later that year to her first full term.

In May, former Westlake Councilman Ray Froelich, alleging a conflict of interest between Rocco’s city job and school board seat, requested Mason take court action to remove Rocco from the school board.

Mason did nothing until December when he told Rocco that the change in the post of law director from an appointed to elected position would make her legally ineligible to sit on the school board. (John Wheeler won election for law director in the November election and was sworn in at the beginning of January.)

Rocco disagreed with Mason’s interpretation of the law. She didn’t want to resign the board seat which she had just won re-election to.

“I truly felt an obligation to the people who helped me on the campaign and the people who voted for me,” Rocco told West Life.

Fighting Mason’s office in court would cost a significant amount of money in legal fees, she said.

So in December, Rocco contacted Rep. Sally Conway Kilbane about amending the law to remove any ambiguity. Conway Kilbane quickly drafted House Bill 455, which clearly stated that employees of a law department can serve on school boards as long as the city’s law director does not represent the school district.

Rocco traveled to Columbus twice last month to testify before statehouse committees on the bill.

Rocco said a few members of the House’s Local, Municipal Government and Urban Revitalization Committee said a similar situation happened in their district. They also asked her what initiated Mason’s opinion. Rocco said she tried to stay out of politics.

“I tried to keep it to the facts and the law,” she said.

In her testimony, Rocco noted nothing in either her job as prosecutor or school board member changed Jan. 1. Rocco said she believed members of the legislature could genuinely put themselves in her position and that’s why they supported the bill.

“The issue was so clear and the votes showed how clear it was — that there was overwhelming support to make sure that the law would not be ambiguous anymore,” Rocco said.

The bill passed in the House 87 – 1 and in the Senate 29 – 4. Rocco said the bipartisan support the bill had in both the House and the Senate is evidence that clarifying the law was the right thing to do.

But six weeks ago, Rocco wasn’t confident the bill would even make it to the floor for a vote.

“I’m as surprised as anybody,” Rocco said of the bill’s quick passage.

Rocco and Conway Kilbane, who had never met before January, both said the state legislature was the proper forum to settle the question.

“I think it was an updating of the law and a clarification,” Conway Kilbane said, adding the original law dated to 1937.

If the question of the correct interpretation had gone to court, Conway Kilbane said, it would have taken up a lot of time.

“We answered the question, I think, appropriately,” Conway Kilbane said.

Jamie Dalton, spokesperson for Mason, said the matter is closed as far as the prosecutor’s office is concerned because there is no longer a conflict in the law.

When asked if he had any gripes with Rocco resolving the issue through the legislature, Mason said, “It is my job to remove people when they are improperly in office. She was able to change the law and that’s fine. We wish her the best.”

Rocco’s efforts to get House Bill 455 passed came under criticism in some letters to the editor in local papers, including West Life. When asked to respond, Rocco said some letters asked what example was she setting for children. Rocco said the lesson for children is this: “When you believe in something, sometimes it takes an effort to stand up and fight for it.”

Rocco said her experience also shows sometimes one has to think outside the box and look for alternative solutions.